Texas free from some federal school rating rules

Texas public schools will get a break from some of the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law, the Texas Education Agency announced Monday.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan granted a conditional waiver that means fewer Texas schools will get failing labels under the federal law. In addition, school districts no longer will be forced to offer students access to private tutoring companies, whose track records have proven spotty. Instead, districts will have more choice in how they spend the federal funds to help struggling students.

“The underlying message throughout our negotiations with the federal government has been Texans know what’s best for Texas schools,” state Education Commissioner Michael Williams said in a statement. “I believe our school districts will appreciate the additional flexibility this waiver provides while also adhering to our strong principles on effective public education.”

Duncan granted the waiver for this school year and is asking Texas to retool its evaluation system for teachers and principals to get continued flexibility from the law. The evaluation issue could prove difficult, with teacher groups often opposed to including student test scores as part of the system.

The Houston Independent School District is one of few statewide that is starting to use student test scores as a significant part of teachers’ evaluations.

Under the waiver, only the bottom 15 percent of Texas schools, based on student test scores, will be subject to sanctions, instead of all campuses getting a federal rating.

The private tutoring has been a point of contention in HISD, where Superintendent Terry Grier has sought to use the federal funds to hire tutors not on the state’s list of approved companies. Some of those companies have been found to over-charge school districts.

The waiver does not eliminate the state testing requirements.

Duncan has been granting waivers to states since Congress has failed to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind law.

NCLB was Bush’s legislation and a terrible piece of legislation at that. Kennedy was simply one of 4 co authors. The legislation was proposed by President George W. Bush on January 23, 2001. It was coauthored by Representatives John Boehner (R-OH), George Miller (D-CA), and Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Judd Gregg (R-NH). Democrats eventually rued Kennedy’s support; Bill Clinton called it a “train wreck” and, in a 2008 editorial, Kennedy himself acknowledged its “results are mixed.” Any person that sets 100% of students to pass a test as the only acceptable outcome knows nothing of education.